Introduction: From the Mountaintop… or So It Seemed
You’d think that once someone starts writing about Being, authenticity, shadows, systemic integrity, and all that juicy ontological stuff, they’d be immune to inauthenticity.
Spoiler: not even close.
In fact, the more you talk about authenticity, the more nuanced and sneakier your inauthenticities can become. They evolve. They learn your vocabulary. They wrap themselves in philosophical robes and start quoting your own frameworks back at you, sometimes more fluently than your students.
I’ve had people call me “The Master,” “The Guru,” and once—no joke—“a kind of ontological Superman.” Apparently, my only weakness is being too coherent. And while part of me finds that funny, the rest of me just wants to say: “Mate, I still binge on overanalysis like it’s Nutella and forget to respond to texts for three days because I’m spiralling over the ethics of kindness.” Another lovingly accused me of being a “Nietzschean Übermensch,” as if I’d ascended beyond doubt and now lived on a cloud made of meta-frameworks and green tea.
So yes, this article is for those of us who care deeply about truth, clarity, and transformation—but still find ourselves playing subtle roles. Whether you’re building frameworks or coaching others through them, whether you're the thinker, the coach, the teacher, or the guide—this is for you.
Frankly speaking, and with full transparency, I first articulated every part of my body of work for myself—to get a hold of my own shadows, dysfunctions, and the fog of confusion I often found myself in. These frameworks—on Being, Metacontent, sense-making, transformation—didn’t emerge from academic detachment or philosophical hobbyism. They were forged out of necessity, rising from the urgent ignition of inner inefficacy I could no longer ignore. I needed to make sense of the patterns I was trapped in, the contradictions I was living through, and the inadequacies I couldn’t coach, lead, or intellectualise my way out of.
And this wasn’t limited to my inner world—it became painfully clear in team building, organisational leadership, and in the decisions around who to hire, partner with, or invest in. I’ve made calls—sometimes costly ones—where I allocated capital, time, and trust into ventures and individuals with extraordinary technical potential, but misaligned Being. That misalignment, over time, proved to be unsustainable.
In parallel, my work with other coaches, psychologists, and leaders, and years of exposure to the unique patterns, contexts, and lived experiences of clients across industries, further deepened the realisation that many of the most persistent, systemic challenges we faced could not be solved by theory alone. They required a lens that could account for who we are being in the midst of complexity. That’s where this work was born. The fact that it now serves others to step into this paradigm is a natural extension, not the origin.
In sharing this, I am also reflecting on my own potential inauthenticities—the ones I’ve uncovered through contemplation, dialogue, shadow work, and simply being willing to apply the very frameworks I promote. This piece is not written from above, but from within.
It’s not a takedown. It’s not a sermon. It’s a gently roasted reality check—for me, and probably for you too.
Let’s talk about the inauthenticities that even the most sincere and well-intentioned among us perform—and how to loosen their grip without losing our depth, humour, or humanity.
The Mask of Hyper-Coherence
(a.k.a. When Your Brain Has a Spreadsheet for Your Emotions)
You know that moment when someone asks, “How are you really?” and instead of answering like a normal mammal, you launch into a 12-part ontological breakdown of your inner state—complete with nested layers, epistemic qualifiers, and a reference to something you published in 2018?
Yeah. That.
Welcome to the Mask of Hyper-Coherence—where every sentence is so well-structured that people assume you’ve transcended confusion, contradiction, and the human condition itself.
Spoiler again: you haven’t.
This mask doesn’t arrive as a lie. It evolves as a side effect of insight. When you’ve spent years refining how you make sense of life, whether through coaching, facilitation, or original frameworks, you learn to process chaos with such precision that even your existential spirals sound curated. People stop seeing you as someone in a process and start treating you like the one who guides the process. And slowly, without intending to, you start performing that clarity even when you’re mid-collapse.
Especially if you're someone who coaches others through big questions—about life, performance, identity, meaning—this mask is a survival strategy. It protects you from being mistaken for someone who’s “lost the plot.” But here’s the paradox: the more coherent you present yourself to be, the more isolated you may become. People assume you’ve “got it sorted.” They stop asking real questions. You start to forget you’re allowed to not have a map.
Meanwhile, behind the scenes, you're staring into space, wondering whether your irritability is unprocessed grief, a magnesium deficiency, or the moral fatigue of pretending you’re not tired of being seen as emotionally bulletproof.
Hyper-coherence feels authentic. After all, you’re not faking anything. You’re expressing what you’ve genuinely processed. But processing is not the same as revealing. And clarity is not the same as connection.
Sometimes, people don’t need your insight. They just need your incompleteness. Your humanity.
How This Shows Up (For Coaches, Thinkers, Facilitators):
You respond to emotional questions with beautifully mapped nuance, but avoid admitting the raw, unformed feeling behind it.
You start noticing that your clients feel safer being messy with you... but you think no one expects you to ever be messy.
Your colleagues praise your coherence, but you privately wish someone would say, “You don’t have to explain it or hold it all together. I’m just here.”
You don’t cry often. Not because you don’t feel, but because your brain pre-processes your grief before it hits your tear ducts.
How to Loosen the Mask (Without Losing Yourself):
Begin with uncertainty: “I’m not sure what this is yet...” is a powerful doorway to connection.
Let yourself say something emotionally raw before you translate it into language that makes sense.
Publicly express something that is unrefined every now and then. Not for drama, but for permission-giving resonance and connection.
If you’re leading a session, or writing, or having a conversation, and you feel the pressure to “wrap it in a bow,” pause. Let it hang a little longer. Let others feel the ambiguity too.
And yes, there’s always a part of you that wants to finish the thought elegantly, to show you’ve metabolised it all.
But the more powerful move is to say:
“Honestly, I don’t have a framework for this. It just sucks. Or maybe it doesn’t. I don’t know. Want to sit with me anyway?”
Hyper-coherence is a gift in theory. But when it comes to human connection and relational dynamics, hyper-coherence becomes armour, and it blocks intimacy.
People don’t always need your clarity.
They need your humanity—unedited, unfinished, and you as the version you’re still becoming.
The Armour of Stoicism
(a.k.a. When You’re So Calm, People Think You’re Either Enraged or Dead Inside)
Some people wear their heart on their sleeve.
You? You wear a stoic monolith wrapped in a linen blend and a quiet “I’m fine.”
You’ve trained yourself to stay composed, measured, steady, centred. You don’t spiral in public. You don’t rage. You don’t post teary videos on social media with trembling captions about how hard it’s been. You handle things. You hold space. You breathe through it. Your voice stays steady even when someone says something so absurd it could derail a freight train of logic.
You’ve probably heard:
“You’re always so calm.”
“I can never tell what you’re really feeling.”
“Wait, do you actually feel things?”
(Yes. You do. You just happen to process those feelings through a 16-dimensional matrix, a Socratic dialogue with yourself, and a silent existential monologue before allowing a single syllable to escape.)
But let’s be clear: Stoicism isn’t the problem. The armour is.
You’re not emotionally frozen—you’re filtered. You’ve simply developed an elegant way to contain your chaos. But here’s the twist: when your emotional depth doesn’t leak out once in a while, people stop feeling your humanity. They may admire you, quote you, even pedestal you—but they don’t actually connect to you.
And worse: after a while, you might stop connecting to you.
Because the reality is that you cannot outsmart or engineer your way out of the emotional nature of your Being.
And softness, like any muscle, atrophies when not used.
The Hidden Cost of the Armour:
People bring you their raw, messy selves—but don’t expect yours in return.
You become a vault for others’ vulnerability, while yours goes unshared, unseen, even unacknowledged.
Emotional connection and intimacy may get replaced with philosophical admiration.
You confuse composure with maturity.
You feel deeply—but in private, in silence, through language, through metaphor. And that works—until one day, it doesn’t.
If You’re a Coach, Facilitator, or Leader:
You’ve likely made a career out of being grounded. People look to you in the storm. But if you’re not careful, they forget you’re also standing in the rain. Your stillness becomes a myth. And when they forget, so do you.
Clients start saying, “I wish I could be like you—so calm.”
And part of you smiles, while another part thinks, “I’m not calm. I’m just not allowed to fall apart while you're watching.”
How to Loosen the Armour (Without Losing Your Edge):
Try micro-signals: “That actually hurt,” or “I don’t have words for this yet, but it feels heavy.” Simple, true, unrehearsed.
When someone offers care, resist the urge to spiritualise the moment. Don’t say, “Thank you for your grounded presence.” Say, “God, I needed that.”
If a tear wants to fall, let it. Don’t narrate it. Don’t explain it away. No poetic flourish. Just the tear.
In a conversation, let someone see you without a lesson in tow—just presence. Maybe even confusion. Maybe even nothing. Just your humanness.
People don’t want perfectly maintained composure.
They want to know that the person guiding them bleeds, too, not because it makes you weak, but because it makes the rest of us brave enough to feel again.
The Pretence of Disinterest in Recognition
(a.k.a. “I Don’t Need Applause… But Also, Did You See How Brilliant That Was?”)
You’ve probably said it—or whispered it with performative detachment over herbal tea:
“I’m not doing this for validation.”
“It’s not about being seen—it’s about impact.”
“The work speaks for itself.”
And, sure, you mostly mean it.
But let’s be honest. You’re not a monk. You’re not a productivity AI. You’re a layered, principled, purpose-driven human who’s probably spent years pouring your life force into your work—refining, wrestling, shaping, staying up late with existential indigestion—just to have someone eventually skim it and say, “Cool stuff. Very motivational.”
Somewhere inside, there's a slightly salty inner child (or inner sage) just longing to hear,
“That thing you created? It moved me. It made me think. It helped me choose better. Thank you. You matter.”
Wanting that doesn’t make you vain.
It makes you human. And also, frankly, awake. Because you know the difference between performance-based applause and being truly seen.
But here’s what happens: many of us—especially those who create transformative ideas, facilitate breakthroughs, or serve as catalysts in others’ lives—develop a kind of philosophical modesty. We perform indifference and collapse it with humility. We tell ourselves that to stay in integrity, we must not care whether people see us or not.
So we swing too far the other way.
We act like we’re made of purpose and marble—pure intention, no personal desire.
And we tell ourselves that if the work is good, it will “speak for itself.”
(Spoiler: it doesn’t. The algorithm barely lets it whisper.)
And here’s the rub: when we pretend not to care, we begin to numb the part of us that needs connection.
We give deeply. We serve well. But somewhere under the surface... we quietly resent not being received.
How This Looks in Real Life (Whether You’re a Coach, Writer, Speaker, or Quiet Genius):
You brush off genuine compliments with a dry, “It’s not about me,” then lie awake later thinking, Why do I feel unseen?
You get a little twitchy when someone rewords your original idea, wraps it in a Canva graphic, and somehow gets more traction than your soul-sculpted post.
You create work that shifts paradigms… and feel oddly deflated when people reduce it to a #growthmindset quote.
You publicly say, “The reward is in the impact,” while privately wondering if your work will ever land in the way it deserves to.
How to Break the Pretence (Without Becoming a Clout-Chaser or Energy Vampire):
Practice receiving praise without deflecting. Don’t go all stoic or wise when someone says “That moved me.” Just say:
“Thank you. That really means something.”Playfully name the desire in community settings:
“Not that I need validation... but if no one claps at the end of this, I’ll quietly question my existence for three days.”Don’t confuse ego with desire to be seen. Wanting to be witnessed is not a weakness. It’s part of the circuitry of human meaning-making.
And remember: if your work is truly about connection, you’re part of the circuit too. You’re not just the plug. You’re the current.
You’re not weak for wanting to be seen.
You’re just tired of speaking into the void while pretending the void is enough.
And you’re allowed—just once, or twice, or often—to want someone to stand up, look you in the eye, and say:
“I see what you’re trying to do. And it matters.”
The Problem with the Perfect Ones
Let’s name the elephant in the coaching room.
In many professional and developmental circles, there’s an unspoken tradition of admiring the perfect ones. The fully enlightened guru. The endlessly coherent philosopher. The leadership expert who not only holds a complete theory of everything but also seems to flawlessly embody it, never stumbling, never doubting, never bleeding.
These individuals are often admired. In some spaces, they are expected as role models.
And over time, many begin striving to resemble them.
But there’s a cost to being real. There’s a risk in being as authentic as possible. There’s a fine line between Vulnerability being embraced and being seen as dangerous. Emotional honesty is interpreted as unprofessional. The pressure to wear the polished mask of the “presentable” expert isn’t just implied—it is quietly, and sometimes overtly, demanded.
That pressure is understandable. It is familiar.
At times, it may seem safer to slip into stoicism than to reveal inner conflict. Easier to perform maturity than to admit confusion. Especially when building a body of work, guiding others, or leading teams, there is often an implicit narrative that one must always appear composed, sorted, and impenetrably coherent.
But here’s the uncomfortable question:
Is it truly desirable to attract those who are drawn to optics, curated charisma, or performative gestures?
Would a following built upon admiration for an image be worth the cost of disconnection from one’s own truth?
Influence, reach, and impact may be part of the vision, but if they require suppressing the very essence that made the work necessary in the first place, then what’s actually being sustained?
Because the moment a person chooses to be seen, not just admired, is the moment the work stops being performance and begins becoming transformation.
And those who resonate with that—likely didn’t arrive to perform.
The Illusion of Fully-Healed Wounds
(a.k.a. “I’ve Processed That” … Until It Suddenly Punches Me in the Face Again)
Ah, yes, the sweet, seductive lie of intellectual closure.
You know the one:
“I’ve integrated that experience.”
“I’ve moved on. I even wrote a chapter about it.”
“That pain was a gift.”
And maybe it was. But let’s not pretend like that same “gift” can’t still whisper at 2 am, uninvited, wearing your ex-boss’s tone of voice, or arrive unannounced in your jaw muscles during a Zoom call about scheduling logistics.
Here’s the trap—especially for those of us who think, teach, coach, guide, write, facilitate, or have ever stood in front of a group with a flipchart and a knowing gaze:
We’ve gotten too good at narrating our pain.
We know how to clothe it in insight. We can dress it in clean language, apply and pack it into a framework, and deliver it as an anecdote with a beginning, middle, and transformational end. Sometimes we even turn it into a course. (Bonus module: “How I overcame betrayal and how you can too.”)
But behind the narrative polish, some part of us hasn’t caught up. The wound still hums beneath the surface—not screaming, but not gone either.
And that’s when the illusion creeps in: we think because we’ve explained it, we’ve completed it.
How This Shows Up (Even in the Most “Integrated” Among Us):
Speaking about a deep rupture with eloquence but no emotional charge—too clean to be real.
Coaching others through their grief while your own stays neatly folded in a drawer labelled “Already Handled.”
Feeling emotionally numb about something that should still sting.
Getting unexpectedly activated by something small—like a sentence, a smell, or an email signature—and thinking, Wait... I thought I transcended this?
Spoiler: you didn’t. And you’re not broken. You’re just… still healing. In spirals. Like the rest of us. Welcome to being human.
What to Do Instead (A.K.A. Drop the Enlightenment Voice for a Second):
When it hits again, don’t intellectualise it immediately. Don’t say, “Ah, interesting—I thought I’d resolved this.”
Try this instead:
“Damn. This still lives in me. I didn’t realise how loud it still was.”Let the emotion hum before you name it. Don’t rush to frame it. Let it leak a little. Let it interrupt your image of being the one who always has words.
Recognise that healing isn’t a checklist—it’s a spiral staircase. Sometimes you find yourself on the same step, just wearing slightly better shoes.
And most importantly: remember that brilliance doesn’t exempt you from pain. Insight doesn’t fast-track grief. Frameworks don’t bypass the body. Your awareness and understanding alone don’t metabolise your emotions.
Especially for Coaches and Practitioners:
It’s tempting to believe your work requires you to always appear integrated. But your clients and students don’t need you to be finished. They need to know you’re in process, still real, still affected by life. Not to collapse in front of them, but to let being human stay visible in the mix.
Because sometimes the most honest thing you can say—quietly, humbly, halfway through a sentence—is:
“Yes, I’ve understood this. And no, I haven’t finished feeling it.”
That line alone might free more people than your most airtight teaching ever will.
The Performance of Self-Sufficiency
(a.k.a. “I’m Fine. I Don’t Need Anything. I Am the System.”)
You know the vibe. You’re the one people go to for answers.
You hold space like a seasoned monk, decode dysfunction like a surgeon, and build frameworks like a metaphysical IKEA—only yours actually come with instructions and emotional insight.
So eventually… you stop asking for help.
Not because you don’t need it, but because you’ve been performing stability for so long that needing anything starts to feel like disruption, breaking character. You're not just a person anymore—you’re the lighthouse. You’re the calm one. The grounded one. The one who remembers to breathe when everyone else is losing their minds.
And the lighthouse? It shines. It doesn’t ask for anything. It just stands there—stoic, noble, beautifully alone in a thunderstorm with no umbrella and probably a herniated emotional disc.
At first, this feels like strength. Then it starts to feel isolating. Then it starts to feel like your spine might snap under the weight of everyone else’s assumptions that you’re always okay.
And the cruel irony?
The stronger you appear, the less likely people are to believe you when you do say you’re not. So eventually, you stop saying it altogether.
Telltale Signs You’re Performing Self-Sufficiency (With Style):
People assume you're “fine” because you don’t flinch, even while internally crumbling like a stale biscuit.
You feel quietly resentful that no one checks in on you, but also gently (or not-so-gently) deflect them when they try.
You only allow breakdowns when they’re private, time-boxed, and scheduled between leadership meetings.
The thought of someone truly carrying your burden makes you uncomfortable. You don’t want to be a burden. Or worse, you don’t want to be misunderstood while being a burden.
You fantasise about someone saying, “Hey, you don’t need to hold this alone”,… but you’d probably respond with, “No, I’m good. It’s just a little existential fatigue.”
Especially If You’re a Coach, Catalyst, or Guide:
You’ve likely built your life around being the one who has it together—the person others rely on to hold their process, to spot the blind spots, to facilitate breakthroughs. And you’re brilliant at it.
But when your entire identity revolves around being the space holder, who holds space for you?
Ways to Retire the Hero Act (Without Becoming a Needy Mess or Losing Your Edge):
Admit—at least privately—that you do need things. Not because you’re failing. But because you’re not a walking framework. You’re a human being with a body, a nervous system, and a need for touch, rest, affirmation, and genuine care.
Let someone else hold space for you, even if they do it “less eloquently” than you would. (Reminder: you don’t have to silently evaluate their active listening skills while crying.)
Practice the radical act of saying:
“I don’t want to carry this alone anymore.”
Not in a crisis. Not in a breakdown. Just because you’ve been carrying it long enough.
Being self-sufficient doesn’t mean being self-isolated.
Even the lighthouse needs maintenance.
Even Atlas eventually shrugged.
Quick Recap of the Five Masks
(For the overachievers, late-night readers, and proud skimmers who’ve made it this far pretending to read deeply.)
Hyper-Coherence – Performing clarity instead of showing confusion.
Stoicism Armour – Mistaking control for maturity.
Pretence of Disinterest in Recognition – Quietly longing to be seen while pretending you’re above it.
Illusion of Fully-Healed Wounds – Narrating your pain so well you forget it still hurts.
Self-Sufficiency Performance – Shining for everyone else while quietly running out of oil.
Reconciliation: Owning Your Growth Without Dimming Your Light
(a.k.a. “Yes, You’re Rare. No, You’re Not Done Yet.”)
Let’s get one thing straight:
If you’ve seen yourself in these masks, it’s not because you’re fake.
It’s because you care deeply. You think with rigour. You carry the burden of creating real substance in a world that often rewards noise, polish, and clickbait conviction.
You are probably exceptionally rare—not in the “standing-on-a-hilltop-in-a-cape” kind of way, but in the quiet, soul-heavy way of someone who sees further, builds deeper, and wrestles more honestly than most around them.
And yes—it’s lonely. Yes, it’s frustrating. And yes, these subtle inauthenticities don’t creep in because you’re weak.
They creep in because you’ve been strong for so long that, without being truly held, the performance became part of the scaffolding.
So how do you stay true to your brilliance while still making room to grow?
How do you keep becoming, without pretending to always be complete?
Here’s how—not a checklist, not commandments—just a set of reminders I return to myself.
1. Let Rarity Be Responsibility, Not Identity
You’re not rare to feel superior. You’re rare because you’re meant to build what doesn’t yet exist. That doesn’t mean building alone—it means building with discernment, integrity, and community.
“I’m not above the crowd. I’m just beneath the weight of what I see.”
Hold your vision without holding yourself apart.
2. Be the First Subject of Your Own Frameworks
If you’ve written or taught about Being, sense-making, authenticity, systemic transformation—beautiful. Now turn that lens inward. Let your tools become mirrors.
Ask: Where am I still rehearsing instead of revealing?
Where am I curating myself out of habit, not integrity?
And for the record, yes—you are allowed to sound like a philosopher in a therapy session. Just make sure it’s not masking what’s true, and don’t let it become your default escape hatch.
3. Speak as One Who Is Becoming
You don’t need to play finished. No one who’s doing meaningful work ever is.
Be the voice of discernment in motion, not certainty in concrete.
“I’m still learning this.”
“This idea is still finding me.”
“I don’t have the answer, but I’ve got a question worth asking.”
That vulnerability? It doesn't weaken your authority—it makes it real.
4. Let Someone Else Hold the Map Sometimes
Even if they’re less articulate. Even if their “method” is just making you tea and sitting in silence while you unravel.
You don’t always need an equal. Sometimes you just need a human.
Let yourself be carried—not because you're incapable, but because interdependence is what sustains brilliance.
Being self-reliant is noble.
But being held without needing to explain yourself? That’s sacred.
5. Don’t Confuse Shadow Work with Self-Loathing
Naming your inauthenticities isn’t shameful—it’s refinement in motion.
It’s not saying, “I’m broken.” It’s saying, “I’m still tuning. Still debugging the myth of who I thought I had to be.”
And that, my friend, isn’t weakness.
That’s transparent evolution. That’s courage with context.
Final Words (And a Toast to All of Us Who Try Too Hard to Get It Right)
To the thinkers who don’t sleep,
To the coaches who forget to be coached,
To the leaders who quietly wonder if they’re still human…
You’re not broken. You’re just becoming.
And the more honest you are about where you still wrestle, the more accessible your work becomes—not by dumbing it down, but by making it breathable.
Let people get close. Let them sit near the fire without having to decode the heat.
So yes, keep building cathedrals of thought.
Design your systems. Articulate your frameworks. Craft your language.
But once in a while, sit outside the structure—messy, vulnerable, unfinished—holding a cup of tea and saying to the world:
“I built this to understand myself too.
You’re not late. Come in.”
Conclusion: The Gift of Dropping the Act (Even Just a Little)
There’s a strange kind of nobility that forms around those who carry responsibility with grace.
The kind who build ideas, hold space, translate wisdom, and show up—again and again—not because it’s easy, but because they’ve seen too much not to.
But the danger of carrying that nobility too long, too cleanly, is that it turns into a performance—one so quiet, so refined, that even you start believing it.
And yet, behind all that strength is someone still learning.
Still feeling. Still longing to be held, understood, met—not as “the guide,” but as a human mid-becoming.
This isn’t about lowering your standard. It’s about broadening your bandwidth and embracing the fullness of your humanity—to include your rawness, your rest, your unrehearsed voice.
Let the philosopher laugh at himself.
Let the coach be coached.
Let the wise one forget for a moment what they once taught.
And let those who guide others admit, with dignity, “I need guidance too.”
Because in a world obsessed with looking sorted, the bravest thing you can do is say:
“I’m still becoming.
And that doesn’t diminish my power—it grounds it.”
If your work is to move others, transform systems, or elevate lives, then know this:
The most transformative thing you might ever do is drop the mask long enough for others to see themselves in your becoming.
That’s where resonance happens.
That’s where credibility deepens
And that’s where the real work begins—not from the top of the hill, but from eye level, heart open, holding the tension between what you’ve built and what you’re still learning to become.